Alex Edler To Undergo Surgery on Broken Finger, Will Miss 4-6 Weeks

The Canucks announced this morning that Alex Edler, who was injured blocking a shot in the Colorado game on Saturday, will undergo surgery today to repair a fractured index finger and is expected to miss 4-6 weeks. So that’s not good.

The Canucks, who were already missing their other top pairing defenceman, Chris Tanev, will now have to figure some way to stay afloat with a mishmash of rookies and defensive defencemen.

Edler took a shot from Carl Soderberg in the hand from close range right in front of the Vancouver net in the first period.

Blocked shots have devastated the Canucks in recent years. This is the second long term injury that Alex Edler has suffered as a result of a shot block (the broken leg he experienced last season also occurred in Colorado), and Alex Burrows, Brad Richardson and Chris Higgins have missed huge chunks of time in the past few seasons for the same reason.

There has been a debate recently about when blocked shots are actually useful, and to be fair, this latest Edler injury occurred on a play when blocking is the preferable maneuver. The new wisdom on the subject encourages getting in front of shots that occur within the home plate area in front of the net, and staying out of the way of point shots and letting your goalie see them. (For more on this topic, see this excellent video.)

Edler left Saturday’s game immediately and made no attempt at a return, and now the Canucks will be forced to find some way to survive without him likely until the new year. As of this morning, the Canucks had some interesting new defensive pairings at practice.

This is frightening.

Despite the fact that Sbisa and Stecher are listed as the first pairing (the Canucks twitter account must just be baiting us now), I’d definitely expect the Hutton-Gudbranson pairing to eat up the majority of even strength ice time, and play against the opposing teams top lines as much as possible.

Whether or not this is a good thing is a matter of debate. The pairing has hemorrhaged goals against and not scored many for, leaving them with a 5-on-5 Goals For ratio of 30.4 percent, the worst of any pairing on the team. Surprisingly, their shot metrics are a lot closer to 50-50, and even their Expected Goals For ratio of 48.9 suggests that there’s some bad luck mixed in.

In any case, the long term prospects of the Vancouver Canucks without either Alex Edler and Chris Tanev are not very good. Tanev is expected to start skating soon, so that should bring some relief. Until then, it could be a real adventure.

Alex Biega, who has played one game of his two-week conditioning stint in Utica, is expected to be brought back. Biega has played only one NHL game so far this season, and it was as a forward.